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Monday, October 04, 2010

Enrollment Tracking

UPDATED - OCTOBER 1 COUNTS NOW AVAILABLE

We are tracking enrollment for a number of schools. Some have been reported as overcrowded, some as chronically underenrolled. The official count, the October 1 (adjusted) headcount, has not yet been published, but we will report them here. If you want a count for a school and we don't provide it, you can either ask for it or look it up yourself here.

Here's what we have so far from the September 13 count (adjusted on 9/27)

45 comments:

Franklin's freshman class is big. That will be something to watch. The District won't be able to shift any Garfield students into Franklin if Franklin is also over-crowded.

Nathan Hale used to want to hold their enrollment to about 1,000. I guess they aren't dreaming that dream anymore.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that the freshman class at Garfield is going to get much smaller. There is absolutely no reason to believe that next year's class won't be just as big. A Garfield with over 2,000 students is entirely possible. They will not only need the Horace Mann building but the community center and the former Dilletente Chocolate space as well.

The entire enrollment at Rainier Beach is less than the freshman class enrollment at four other schools. Yet Rainier Beach needs two principals.

Eckstein isn't getting any smaller. The District may need to open or re-purpose another building as a middle school north of the Ship Canal. It could be Jane Addams. Other candidates include John Marshall, Wilson-Pacific, and Lincoln.

Hooray for Aki Kurose's increased enrollment. Sure, I know that most of it is due to the loss of escape routes to Hamilton and Meany, but it should mean a better mix of students and a greater variety of classes.

Some of those Eckstein service area elementaries, especially Bryant, View Ridge, and Wedgwood, are really, really full. Sand Point did its job by attracting 52 kindergarteners. Olympic View is also full with 77 K's and 482 total students.

Green Lake must have room with a K enrollment of only 44 and a total enrollment of 284. Same for John Rogers with 47 K's and 284 total, Olympic Hills with 44 K's and 261 total, and Sacajawea with 37 K's and 274 total students. The District has drawn the boundaries to overcrowd some of the schools and under-enroll others.

Grade 5 enrollment at these schools totals 449 - about the same size as Eckstein's big grade 6 class this year. They might not all go to Eckstein, but then again they might. Plus some students may come out of private schools if they are guaranteed a seat at Eckstein.

The low enrollment at AS#1 might cause the District to doubt or deny the demand for alternative education.

The low enrollment at Madrona, however, won't cause them to question anything.

Jane Addams seems to be drawing well - too well in K to be converted to a middle school without a LOT of disruption.

The elementaries in the Madison Service Area are all really full. Capacity management appears to have been a botch job there. They are going to have to re-open Fairmount Park or Genessee Hill - or at least seriously discuss it.

And how to explain the popularity of Schmitz Park? Hmm. Must be a demographic or statistical anomaly.

I'm going off topic here, but I can't find an email for either you or Melissa.

The 9th circuit issued and opinion last week that could be a real monkey wrench for the TFA crowd. The case concerned whether uncertified "teachers" (like TFA teachers) are "highly qualified" to teach in Title I schools. If they are not, then the schools are out of compliance with No Child Left Behind and are not eligible for Title I dollars.

It's no surprise that AS1 enrollment continues to fall; the district has done everything possible to make it an unattractive option, including lying to prospective parents about what the school actually is. Sadly, I think the writing is on the wall. No more option school for middle schoolers north of the cut, since there's no room at Salmon Bay for anyone else. (Unless one counts Adams, and really, why should one? There's nothing alternative about it except a vague hand-waving emphasis on environmental science.)

Cleveland actually has 177 9th graders in regular program- 33 9th graders are enrolled in bilingual & 22 in SPED. ( And has just 89 12th graders- how many will be left by June?)

Franklin has 69 bili in 9th grade with 36 students in SPED & 184 12th graders.

Ingraham has 719 student in regular program-115 bilingual students and 109 SPED students- isnt the argument for expanding Ingraham and cutting down the established trees a clain that enrollment will be going up?When is that expected to happen exactly?

Rainier Beach has 242 students in the regular program ( and two principals!) & 87 students in bilingual & 50 in SPED.( I'm using state enrollment figures which are lower than Districts for some reason)

I'm not sure if it is meaningful to look at a breakdown of enrollment by program. It's true that there are only 242 in the regular ed program at Rainier Beach, but the other students there are Rainier Beach students and full-fledged members of that community. Let's remember that special education students and bilingual education students are general education students first.

I'm wondering where the District got that data about enrollment rising by 200-300 students. I'll have to go find that claim and try to source it.

Emerald Kitty,those 33 bilingual 9th graders at Cleveland are taking mainstream classes. Maybe 3 - 4 are also in one sheltered ELL class, but no more than that. No need to disaggregate them from the data...

Let's remember that special education students and bilingual education students are general education students first.

I understand that very well as I have two children under that classification- However, families have less control over where their students who are classified as bilingual or Sped are assigned than other Seattle students do.

The district uses Sped students to fill seats, in underenrolled schools with less regard for what the student needs, IMO, than for their own numbers.

@ Josh--Jane Addams is not an alternative school. It has never been billed as such, and definitely shouldn't be thought of as one.

@ Charlie-- I can see the district at some point changing JA from an option school to an area school, at least for middle school. The building will hold lots of kids and the layout is fairly well suited for co-housing a larger middle school with a smaller elementary.

I believe the numbers for JA are about where the principal expected them to be this year. I think the location of JA could be having an effect on enrollment at John Rodgers, and Sacajawea, which is maybe why their numbers are lower compared to Bryant.

Josh I totally sympathize with your frustration re the lack of District support for AS#1 and the need for more MS Alt seats in the north end, but at least Salmon Bay does mushroom up in size for MS. From what I understand, they add about 1 1/2 classes at 6th grade (45 seats?). All alt schools are all city draws now and MSers can get Metro passes to go to an Alt that is outside of their walk zone. I'm not sure how many Alts do mushroom though which is a problem given that Thornton Creek and now QA Elementary are K-5 Alt schools--so there is no where for their grads to go if they want to stay Alt.

I wonder if TC is considering trying to go K-8 at all? Staff was opposed two years ago-but I'm not sure if it was the concept or the pace that they objected to?.

If I had kids at QAElem, I would be working on a pathway for their grads now (maybe an academy or focus at McClure? Or how about a 6-12 TAF like academy cohoused with Center School when (if?) they get moved)

Charlie, I think the issue is that you are comparing mid-Sept numbers to last year's Oct. 1 count. The mid-Sept numbers don't include students that the district knows are coming but have not yet attended school and often includes anomolies based on attendence taking/reporting errors. The mid-Sept numbers also miss moves between schools that happen when waitlists are moved. Maybe the district was comparing this year's mid-Sept numbers to last years? The Oct. 1 count for this year that will shead light on if overall enrollment has gone up and where students really are.

Maureen, thanks for the comment, but as I understand it, the whole reason Salmon Bay does "mushroom" to the extent it does is because it essentially serves as the dedicated middle school for Thornton Creek grads (if they WANT to go there rather than, say, Eckstein). Again, what I hear is that the wait list for 6th grade at SB is ridiculously long and never moves an inch. Frankly, based on my tour of SB a couple years ago, I don't think it'd be our cup of tea anyway, but it's rather frustrating that it's designated as my "local" option school.

This is all based on "what I hear", however, so I could well be wrong about this. Someone actually AT Salmon Bay might want to weigh in on this.

My own personal situation with what seems to be the impending closure of AS1 is that I'm pretty sanguine: my son is in 8th grade this year anyway, and my daughter in 5th, so we'd have a lot of flexibility next year anyway - but my heart aches for the other families and kids at AS1 who really don't have any good choices at all.

Sixth grade is 120. About 15-25 usually come over from Thornton Creek, but they no longer have assurance of priority or dedicated transportation once the grandfathered 7th and 8th graders age out.

This leaves 55-65 seats for new students at 6th grade. It is easier to lottery in in 6th grade than in kindergarten, due to sibling preference, which generally leaves very few K seats, especially if you want full day K.

I believe, though, that Thornton Creek will actively lobby the district this year to continue the preferential placement at S.B. for its kids. As they should, unless/until the district makes alt school programming a priority (which includes thought about continuation of cohorts on the ele. to middle schoole transition.) Anyhow, TC cohort preference to SB would mean that there are many fewer seats available at the middle school level.

TC would need a remodel to expand their building to grow to be a k-8. That's probably not going to happen now with Sandpoint and McDonald just opened, and less than half full, and JA only filling half their building. My guess is the district counts "total" seats available, and not "alt" seats available. That said, there is severe overcrowding at Eckstein. The building will not be able to hold all of the kids if they get another 6th grade class of 450+. TC growing to a k-8 would help, as would expanding the JA middle school to a mushroom model to serve more 6-8 students.

So if Bryant has 122 Ks and 4 classes, that makes 2 classes of 30 and 2 classes of 31? What is the legal amount of kids for 1 teacher? If this is the actual case, I am pretty disgusted. My kids aren't in school yet, but I can't imagine a class of Ks over 30.

On the positive side, the number for Ks at Sand Point seems great. hope they are off to a good start. Any feedback from Sand Point parents?

That said, there is severe overcrowding at Eckstein. The building will not be able to hold all of the kids if they get another 6th grade class of 450+.

Parents in the NE have been asking for years how the district plans to handle the coming cohorts, which are larger than usual, as they reach middle school age. If Eckstein is crowded now with a 6th grade class of 450, just wait 2-3 years. The "bubble" started with the current cohort now in 3rd grade. That's the year schools started adding Kindergartens throughout the NE. The next year, even more Ks were added. And, again this year, schools like Bryant had to have a 5th K class.

If I had time, I'd take a look at current enrollment in 3rd grades and under at the Eckstein feeder schools and see how those numbers compared to the current 6th grade class back when they were that age (just a crude attempt to look at attrition over the years to try to project how many kids might be guaranteed a spot at Eckstein before 2015 when the boundaries are open to change - may be meaningless with a new SAP, but if we see a few hundred more kids in each rising cohort, it could indicate a big problem.)

calculator, bryant may have 24-25 K kids per class now, but when the lists were posted the weekend before school started, the numbers per class were higher (27-28). Some of those families, as expected, did not show up. Hence, there are now *only* 122 Kindergartners there.

It needs to be noted that there are also only 73 5th graders who will be leaving at the end of the year. They've already converted every possible space into classrooms, so what happens next year when 73 leave and 122 rise up a grade?

Kim Whitworth said there were 1,210 at Eckstein on 23 September, and the 01 October numbers say 1,217.

OTOH, my 5th-grade daughter's teacher at Bryant told us at Curriculum Night that at 25 students, it's the smallest class she's seen since she started teaching 15+ years ago, but knows that there'll be more soon, because the 3rd and 4th grade classes are larger than this year's 5th grade class.

I have heard the term "functional capacity" thrown around but don't quite understand what it means. Can anyone point me to where I can find out the functional capacity of a building -- I would like to compare it to enrollment numbers I see on the October 1 counts. Also, don't fire codes come into play somewhere with these crowded schools? (Or is that what functional capacity is all about?) Thanks!

For others who are unsure about functional capacity, here's the scoop:

The capacity of a school depends, to a certain extent, on the programs and services in the school. Take a classroom. You might presume that it can hold 30 students - and it can if it is used as a core classroom. If it is used as a self-contained special education classroom, however, it can only hold 6-8 students. If it is a music room where students take orchestra or choir it could hold more like 45-60 students. So programs and services can alter the capacity of the space.

Then, of course, there comes the question of how many students we will allow in core subject classroom. Will it be 30, or will it be 28, or 32?

Finally, there comes the question of prep time. A high school or middle school teacher will teach five classes and stay in their classroom during the sixth period to do his or her prep work. During that hour, the capacity of the room is zero. If, however, the school is pressed for space, they could have the teacher go somewhere else to do their prep work and another teacher could use the room for a class. There are similar opportunities in elementary schools to use classrooms during the teachers' prep times.

Finally, there comes the question of using more rooms as classrooms rather than dedicating them to other purposes. In some schools there are classrooms being used as offices or storage. In other schools there are offices or storage spaces being used as classrooms.

All of these variables - programming, services, class size, prep time, and re-purposing rooms - can be used to adjust a school's functional capacity within a finite range. Trouble comes when a school maximizes their capacity by re-purposing every room, closet, and dead-end hallway as a classroom, puts 32 kids in every class, makes extra size classes for electives and P.E., and boots teachers out of their rooms for prep and STILL don't have enough space for all of the students.

Then they have to get creative. They offer a zero period that starts early and a seventh period that starts late. They have to offer multiple lunch shifts (they would anyway because they can't get all of the kids through the cafeteria line) which takes a share of the students out of the classrooms for a longer part of the day.

Sometimes they STILL don't have enough space. Then we have trouble.

These adjustments make it impossible to name a single number to represent a school's functional capacity.

I'll give you a definition of when functional capacity is exceeded. It is when the school is so overcrowded they cancel the school play that has been held annually "forever". The school is so crowded one of the 40+ "extra" Kindergarten kids rs breaks her arm on the overcrowded playground. The older kids are banned from large parts of the playground (they probably are just trying to get more money from the parents to build a new playground, my 9 year old told me in all seriousness). Functional capacity is exceeded when the district moves the moldy, rusty portables in and it starts to look like a trailer park in a 3rd world country. I guess fire codes and earthquake/disaster safety are not part of the equation.

I tried to watch a portion of the Board meeting this evening but had to turn it off after a couple of minutes.

The Demographer was trying to answer questions about the unforecasted overcrowding at so many schools (including my own.)

Her response in essence is that it will all be better in a few years -- just need to wait for it.

In the interim - no extra support for overcrowded schools from the District. It will be handled at the local level by the Principals and staff.

My take away is that schools that have had any semblance of internal balance or control stripped away will just have to find their own way to deal with all the crumminess that WSNorth describes (that is happening at our school as well.)

Massively crummy that the local "Principal and staff" will need to deal with it when they have zero control over enrollment at their school, funding at their school, class size or budget.

There are four attendance area elementary schools in the Madison Service Area: Alki, Gatewood, Lafayette, and Schmitz Park.

Alki has 363 students, 67 in KGatewood has 462, 100 in KLafayette has 526, 93 in KSchmitz Park has 414, 94 in K

Last year, Alki had 363 students - no change; Gatewood had 418, they are up 44 this year; Lafayette had 522; they are up 4 this year; and Schmitz Park had 355, they are up 59.

It is worth noting that when the District set their Capacity Management Plan, they reckoned the functional capacity of these schools to be: Alki - 312, Gatewood - 408, Lafayette - 495, and Schmitz Park - 336. Which means that the total functional capacity of the service area is 1,551 while the current enrollment of the schools totals 1,765. In short, the Madison Service Area elementary schools are more overcrowded than Garfield and impacting a similar number of students.

The excess enrollment of 214, plus 10% (155) for flexability, is enough for another school. The District should not have closed two schools in the north end of West Seattle as they did, and they should now re-open one of them.

The Board and the District were well-warned that this would happen when they made the Capacity Management Plan but they chose to ignore the community and the math.

I hope that having these numbers in black and white like this make it clear.

This winter, in accordance with the Capacity Management Policy, the superintendent is supposed to produce a capacity management report. The Board is supposed to review that report.

This winter the superintendent is supposed to recommend action in response to the capacity management report and the Board is supposed to take action on that recommendation.

The report is supposed to monitor changes in enrollment, demographics and program demand to facilitate the consideration of actions that would ensure that school building and regional capacity are matched with enrollment and demographic changes.

This report cannot fail to note the under-capacity of elementary schools in the Madison service area. The superintendent cannot fail to recommend action to address that need for additional capacity. Such a failure would be unforgivable.

Education Acroynms

Advanced Learning - SPS' three-tier program for advanced learners. Made up of APP, Spectrum and ALOs. (Note: the name of the district program is "Advanced Learning Services and Programs" but these three programs fall under "Highly Capable Services" of AL Services and Programs.

ALO - Advanced Learning Opportunity, the third tier of SPS' Advanced Learning program

AP - Advanced Placement. A national program of college-level classes given in high schools.

APP - Accelerated Progress Program. One of the levels of the Advanced Learning Program. NOTE: the name of this program is now "HIGHLY CAPABLE COHORT." This change occurred in 2014.

ASB - Associated Student Body. High school leadership groups.

AYP - Adequate Yearly Progress. Part of NCLB.

BEX - Building Excellence. SPS' capital renovation/rebuilding program that is funded via the BEX levy. Every 3 years there is the Operations levy and either the BEX or BTA levies as those two levies rotate in six year cycles).

BLT - Building Leadership Team. Staff members at a school who meet regularly to discuss building issues.

BTA - Buildings, Technology, Academics. The major maintenance/other capital fund for SPS. Originally BTA was to cover major maintenance like HVAC (heating, ventilation, air conditioning), roofs, waterlines, etc.) but now covers wide swaths of items like athletic fields, technology and funding academic needs.

CAICEE - Community Advisory Committee for Investing in Educational Excellence. Created by former Superintendent Manhas in 2008, to issue a report about reform recommendations for SPS.

CSIP - Continuous School Improvement Plan, the plan for improvement for each school as required by state law.

EOC - End of Course Assessments, given in math and science, required for high school graduationESEA - Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the federal law that governs education, includes the NCLB accountability provisions.

e-STEM or e-STEAM - STEM or STEAM curriculum with an environmental focus.

FACMAC - Facilities and Capacity Management Advisory Committee. A district committee comprises of an all-volunteer citizen group created in 2012 to help bring research and ideas to capacity management issues in the district.

FERPA - Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. A federal law that protects students' privacy

FRL - Free and reduced lunch.

FTE - Full Time Equivalent

FY - Fiscal Year

Highly Capable Services - NEW name (as of 2014) as umbrella name for these programs: Highly Capable Cohort (formerly APP), Spectrum and ALO (Advanced Learning Opportunities).

HSPE - High School Proficiency Exam, state assessment that replaced the WASL for 10th graders, required for graduation

HQT - Highly Qualified Teacher, a standard set by federal law

IA - Instructional Assistant

IB - International Baccalaureate program. An international program of advanced classes that can either be taken as stand alone or as part of an overall IB program.

IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law that governs special education

MAP - Measures of Academic Progress. A computer-based adaptive assessment made by NWEA and originally purchased by the district for use as a district-wide formative assessment but now used for a wide variety of purposes.

MSP - Measurement of Student Progress, the state proficiency assessment that replaced the WASL for students in grades 1-8

MTSS - Multi-Tiered Systems of Support

NCLB - No Child Left Behind, a provision of the federal education law, ESEA, introduced during the George W. Bush administration